Joe Gibbs knows a thing or two about scoring points and winning big games.

The Hall of Fame coach led the Washington Redskins to four Super Bowls, and won three of them. His 1983 Super Bowl team averaged 33 points per game. Behind the running of John Riggins and passing of Joe Theismann, the Redskins hung 51 points on the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC playoffs.

Joe Gibbs (AP Photo)

Seven years later, led by unsung heroes Doug Williams and Timmy Smith, Gibbs won his third Super Bowl by averaging 30 points a game.

Gibbs, who went 154-94 in 16 years, produced some of the greatest offensive teams in the NFL, despite having mostly marginal quarterbacks.

But even Gibbs is amazed by the offensive machine of the Denver Broncos.

“Their scheme is probably one of the best schemes ever in offensive football, because you’ve got a guy who is that experienced, that accurate and that knowledgeable, and he’s actually calling everything from the line,” Gibbs said of Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. “When we call it from sidelines, you’re just guessing.”

Gibbs, now one of the most successful team owners in NASCAR, is picking Manning’s Broncos to win Sunday’s Super Bowl — if the weather cooperates.

“My Super Bowl pick would be Denver, as long as there is not a big wind,” Gibbs said with a laugh. “If there’s a big wind, I’m switching my deal. I’m going to go to the window and try and get my money back.”

Gibbs is one of the most successful coaches/team owners in professional sports, winning championships in two major sports. He won three Super Bowls and four NFC championships with the Redskins, and then parlayed that success into a successful NASCAR career, where his teams have won three Cup championships.

And in both, Gibbs was successful from the start, winning the Super Bowl in his second season as a head coach and the Daytona 500 in his second season as a NASCAR team owner.

As his NASCAR teams met the media on Thursday, Gibbs took a moment to talk football. And, like most NFL masterminds, Gibbs marvels at the brilliance of Manning.

“Most teams obviously have audibles because you are trying to put it back in the quarterback’s hands because you’re not sure what the (defense is) going to play,” Gibbs said. “But when you see him go to the line of scrimmage and all of a sudden you see him quick-snap that thing, and then you’ve got to get into whatever (defense) you are playing … And then he goes to the line of scrimmage and he backs out of there and now he is looking at what you’re doing and he’s making a call based off that, that scheme is obviously hard to stop.”

Gibbs stops short of calling Manning the best quarterback ever, because, well, he doesn’t place those kinds of labels on players. And he’s partial to quarterbacks like Theismann and Williams and Mark Rypian, who each led his teams to Super Bowl victories.

“I had three great ones that played for me that won Super Bowls, so I’m always leery about saying who’s the greatest,” he said. “You look down through history and there’s been a lot of great quarterbacks. Certainly I think he is special but I’m always leery about saying somebody is the best ever. I don’t think I can do that.”

Now 73, Gibbs has many great Super Bowl memories, including winning his first during the strike-shortened season in 1982. Gibbs went 8-8 in his first season as a head coach in 1981, but came back to go 8-1 in 1982 and beat the Dolphins, 27-7, in the Super Bowl behind Riggins (166 yards rushing) and Theismann (two passing TDs).

“The very first one, we came out of nowhere to go to a Super Bowl in our second year coaching in the NFL. It was kind of like a dream deal,” Gibbs said. “You had John Riggins on fourth-and-one going off tackle for 43 yards. I’m down on my knees because I know if we don’t make this, I’m going to get scalded.”

Five years later, Gibbs led the Redskins back to the Super Bowl, where he used the passing of Williams and the running of Smith to trounce John Elway’s Broncos 42-10.

“In ’87, with Doug Williams, that was a whole different story — the first black quarterback who had a chance to play great in the Super Bowl and he wound up being the MVP. That was a great story,” Gibb said. “But also the second quarter where we scored 35 points, that was a wild experience.”

In 1991, Gibbs used another unheralded quarterback in Rypian to beat Jim Kelly’s Buffalo Bills 37-24 in Super Bowl XXVI.

“That team probably achieved more for ... that was a great team (effort),” Gibbs said. “They were all different and different experiences and different memories.”

But the Super Bowl Gibbs remembers most is the one he didn’t win. Behind Theismann and Riggins and an explosive receiving core, the ’83 Redskins went 14-2 and led the NFL in scoring with 541 points. It also set a record for turnover margin at plus-43.

“That may be the one record that no one will ever beat,” Gibbs said. “That was a smart team that knew how to protect the ball with Theismann, and then could take it away on defense.”

Yet, a year after winning the Super Bowl, the Redskins lost to the Los Angeles Raiders 38-9.

That’s a day and experience Gibbs will never forget.

“What I learned from that, I thought that if you at least get to the Super Bowl, you’re going to feel pretty good about yourself. I never felt worse going back on that plane,” he said. “That was the worst feeling. I don’t know if I will ever get over that.

“That team was probably the most talented team I ever coached, I think one of the best ever. But we lose that game. I was shocked at that feeling.”

That’s what Gibbs takes away from the games and races that he has experienced over the years. Relish the thrill of victory, because the agony of defeat lasts much longer.

“I always felt like the losses were harder to get over,” he said. “That was a terrible feeling.”